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Not as great a night for the women, I have to say. The guys pretty much blew everyone away, but I only saw one Idol-class performance from the women, and I saw a lot of pretty weak stuff. The good news: Pia Toscano. The last one on stage, after the final commercial, just when I was trying to hustle the kids off to bed, and we just had to sit down and shut up and listen. Read more »

That, at least, was the title of the Milk Club forum March 1. Quite a panel, too: Sups. Avalos, Campos, Chiu, Kim and Mar. Tim Paulson from the Labor Council. Former Milk Club Prez Jef Sheehy. Tiny from Poor Magazine. And me.Read more »

Freaky days, these, what with the war on NPR, Planned Parenthood, and Wisconsin. Freaky enough that people feel the need to make a gesture, which is what Wigg Party neighborhood activists were doing last night while most of us were finishing up that third glass of wine, tucking in the childrens, or being lame and sleeping. Facebook solidarity, baby – social network activism.

“We do feel the larger progressive agenda is really being attacked at this moment in time.” Morgan Fitzgibbons heads up the Wigg Party, Western Addition's neighborhood sustainability group that by night throws bean sprouting classes/parties in a four-story Victorian called the Sunshine Castle and by day works with the SF Bike Coalition on improving the Wiggle, among other ventures. Read more »

DANCE Rehearsing The Unsayable at the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab, the performers of Hope Mohr's newest work march together. The row of marchers is composed of her company members (Cameron Growden, Derek Harris, Risa Larsen, Rogelio Lopez Garcia, and Tegan Schwab), and artistic partners who are war veterans (Carol Roye, Katharine Conley, Paul Ramirez, and David Fish). Read more »

SUPER EGO Mardi Gras is one of those time-honored party traditions I always forget. Usually, I'll pass by some unfortunate gay man covered in plastic Miller Lite beads passed out on a Castro curb, a bedazzled mime mask slipping from his gradually unclenching fist. Then I'm all like, "Oh, it's Fat Tuesday," and I totally know what I'm giving up for Lent. I love my Castro gays! They're like a tragic calendar of fetes.Read more »

One of the strongest aspects of the film We Were Here is the intimacy and depth of its interviews (read our review here), so it's with embarrassment and regret that I'm presenting this relatively casual Q&A with director David Weissman with the caveat that it's been marred by a snafu. While transcribing, I discovered that the 'Rec' button on my ancient tape recorder had been triggered when it was in my carrying bag, and a sizable portion of the talk – including passages about archives, filmmaking, community, San Francisco, the cultural influence of The Cockettes, and a younger generation's view of AIDS – had been replaced by the muffled sound of footsteps and traffic. The conversation is lost, but the story isn't: We We Here is screening at the Castro Theatre through Thurs/3. Here's some of what Weissman and I discussed. Read more »

At the Potrero Hill Democratic Club’s debate about Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to ax local redevelopment agencies to balance the state’s $26 billion deficit, folks attempted to evaluate if redevelopment agencies are essential for job creation and community revitalization, if reform, not total destruction, is possible, and if bum choices are all we have to look forward to Read more »

Today Johnny has a profound revelation at the gym: For 30 years, the right wing in this country has had its way. Almost every part of the right's economic and foreign-policy agenda -- tax cuts for the rich, cuts in welfare, deregulation of financial institutions, dramatic increases in the military budget -- has come to pass. We've seen, and we see today, the results of that agenda. It doesn't work. So why does anyone still take it seriously? Listen after the jump.

Those bedazzled emissaries of SF morals, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, are once again emerging from their pancake makeup-encrusted cloisters to spread the good word. Indeed, on Sun/6 they'll be hosting not one, but two benefits involving liberal doses of alcohol and private part-focused celebrations.

In SoMa, the sisters invite you to take a sacrament of all-you-can-drink Bud Lite at Chaps to benefit the group's anti-hate crime “Stop the Violence” campaign. Of course, pants are optional – the event is entitled, after all, Jock Off. Eee! Pacifism is sexy! Pull your trousers halfway up to trek across town for the concurrent Quadroboob, whose ra-ma-tazz lineup (including the spectacular Lady Monster) guarantees that even as you are raising funds for the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund, you will be simultaneously putting your knockers to good use. That means shake 'em, ladies (and gents). Read more »

Citing UC Regent David Crane’s op-ed in the Chronicle, in which Crane questioned if public sector workers should have collective bargaining rights, Sen. Leland Yee says he wants to stop Crane’s UC Regents confirmation and protect the vital services provided in our communities by public employees.”

In his op-ed, Crane argues that “collective bargaining for public employees in California changed the balance of power and - most importantly - gave public employees power over their compensation and benefits.”

But Yee, who is running in the San Francisco mayor’s race this fall, counters that the only public employees at the UC that have any real power over their compensation are the top executives. Read more »

Hasan Elahi seems awfully jocular for a guy who is under constant surveillance. We're standing in a room lined with 64 monitors, on which flash photos of his personal life from over the past seven years. “There's gas stations, all the beds I've slept in,” the artist narrates as the slideshows progress. Rutgers, Brooklyn, Santa Fe, Philly, an unidentified toilet. “All the toilets I've ever done anything in,” he grins, checking to see if we get the joke.

Nowadays, Elahi is the one instigating his own surveillance. But the Bangladeshi American, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, was once detained at the Detroit airport by INS, who then turned him over to the FBI for six months of “interviews” regarding his international travel habits. His project of comprehensive self-documentation, now on display for an exhibition at the Intersection of the Arts (and opens today, Weds/2), grew out of this “terrifying” experience. Read more »

I'm not taking it all back (yet) cuz I still think all the tears and drama are stupid, but Ihave to say: the guys brought it last night. Not a single contestant truly sucked (except Jordan, who almost truly sucked, but he's a jerk anyway). Some were absolutely spectacular. Doing Screamin' Jay Hawkins on Idol is nuts, so much could go wrong -- but Casey Abrams pulled of "I Put A Spell On You" in a way that seemed almost impossibly brilliant. Read more »

Trevor Paglen's photography has always been about making the unseen visible. His luminous chromogenic prints unsettlingly reveal that the machinery of war and surveillance controlled by the military-industrial complex is more often than not hiding from plain sight; one need only have the right high-powered lens to gaze back.Read more »